


we've  fallen (so far)

by elliefvckingwilliams



Category: The Last of Us (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, I would die for lev, Slow Burn, abby just puts up with it, ellie is a cute dumbass, kind of, they just coexist and try not to kill each other, with a penchant for making bad decisions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:22:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25757314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elliefvckingwilliams/pseuds/elliefvckingwilliams
Summary: being lost gets lonely sometimes.~ or, abby and lev aren't captured and instead find ellie williams hanging upside down in a tree ~
Relationships: Abby & Lev (The Last of Us), Abby/Ellie, Abby/Ellie (The Last of Us), mentions of Dina/Ellie
Comments: 136
Kudos: 382





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> it's been said a lot, but abby and ellie really are two sides of the same coin, and i would have loved to see them have a coherent canon conversation -- but they didn't so i had to write it myself. buckle up because this could be a long one.

The skin on Abby's hands is rough, probably a result of years spent clutching a gun like a lifeline. It feels oddly scratchy as she rubs her palm on her cheek tiredly. "C'mon, kid. You already had ten extra minutes." 

Lev groans and shifts his head on the bunched up hoodie he's using as a pillow. His voice is muffled when he says, "I don't see you moving either." She frowns and nudges his leg in an attempt to spur him on into wakefulness. 

It doesn't take long for them to grab their supplies, Lev's bow and Abby's pack and not much in between, then they're back out into the main street. Abby would prefer to travel more discreetly through a back alleyway, but she's already seen how many infected lurk there. They've learnt that California isn't the type of place to let your guard down in. 

Outside is already warm, sunlight filtering down through blankets of dead leaves in the trees. Abby squints as she's finally pulled out of whatever sleep trance remained about her, and she sighs at the day beginning. 

Lev beside her is silent as he walks, quietly taking in the surrounding area. It's the usual type of street, rust streaked cars lying about and bushes growing all over, boarded up windows in the houses. He's munching on a granola bar they'd snagged from a raider's base a few days back. The packet rustles in his fingers. 

"How far do you think we'll make it today?" Lev looks up at her. His eyes shine in questioning through messed hair. It's longer now, his hair, silky fine where it's starting to tumble over his forehead. 

Abby shrugs unsurely. It makes her nervous when he looks at her like that, like he's depending on her, like he needs her. She doesn't want to let him down again, but she's goddamn afraid that she will. 

"I don't know... hopefully we'll make it out of Santa Barbara. Further up the beach." 

They're on their way to Avalon now, to the fireflies, to safety. But that means going back through the danger riddled bowels of Santa Barbara, and Abby's not exactly looking forward to it. She doesn't think Lev is either. 

"Do you think we'll run into any more groups?" 

They'd discovered in the past few days that this town is overspread with gangs and raiders. Taking them out silently is always their go-to, but more than once they'd had no choice but to shoot it out. 

Abby meets his eyes and sighs, "I'm not sure, kid. Hopefully not." 

The suburbs are quiet as they travel through, just their footsteps and breathing accompanying them. Lev wanders a few steps behind her, the way he admires everything with childlike curiosity lacing his eyes a harsh reminder of his past. Abby breathes out unevenly and points towards a large house, clearly once the pride and joy of some well-off family. "See that window? In movies, that's where the teenagers always sneak out from." 

Lev follows her finger and then glances back to her. "They escaped from their houses?" 

Abby nods and tugs the backpack straps further up her arms, "Ungrateful shits." It pulls a laugh out of Lev, he always likes it way too much when he swears. Recently he's taken to repeating a few of her hissed curses, and she's not sure whether she should reprimand him or not. She's not sure about anything when it comes to Lev, really. 

He doesn't talk much about his past, he prefers to ask Abby questions about anything and everything to do with her. They haven't spoken about the Seraphites, about Seattle, about anything that happened there. They haven't spoken about Yara— Abby's breath catches in her throat. She's not ready to talk about Yara. She thinks Lev isn't either. 

She hasn't thought much about Seattle lately. At first it had consumed her, like everything else was an afterthought and her friends laying in pools of blood was the forefront of her life. Now it's more of a feeling, like, oh yeah, that happened to me. Now she tries to think ahead to the future that's building itself in front of her, fireflies and Lev and happiness. 

She hasn't thought much about Ellie either. More than once, Lev has brought her up, and then Abby snaps at him, apologises later and goes to sleep with Ellie's screams echoing around her mind.

They stop off for a break at an old gas station. Dirty windows allow for enough light to leak through inside, Abby's bag hits the floor with a thump as she slides it off her exhausted shoulders. She drops into a plastic chair and stretches an arm above her head in a weak attempt to subdue the muscle pain. Lev stays standing, his feet shifting in anticipation. "Can I look around?" He asks. 

Abby smiles at him knowingly. "There's no candy bars here kid. Raiders cleared this whole place out." 

They'd found a few expired chocolate bars about a week back, Abby had enjoyed them but Lev had loved it. She guesses he's never eaten anything really sweet before. Must be a Seraphite thing. 

His shoulders slump in disappointment, and she nods her head towards the back room. "You could still take a look, I guess. You never know." Lev heads straight towards the door with her calling after him to be careful, his footsteps are quiet in the already silent building. 

She drops her head back with a groan. Her back is aching from where she'd landed flat on it after falling through a roof yesterday. They'd been running from clickers, a feat that's become more common for them than Abby would've liked. 

Abby cranes her neck to look though to the half darkness that Lev had disappeared into. "Lev, how we doing back there?" Silence. She sits up, eyebrows furrowing. "Lev?" She's on her feet and at the door in seconds, hand on the hilt of her gun ready to draw in a flash. 

It's some sort of storage room, utility shelves line one of the walls, stacked up with empty canisters and bottles. Abby's heart is thumping as she creeps further inside, her eyes darting about. 

Her body relaxes at seeing Lev bent over some sort of desk, his face concentrated. Relieved, she leans over his shoulder and hopes he can't hear her voice shake. "Whatcha got there?" He points at a crumpled letter written in looping handwriting that Abby would only dream of being able to produce. She skims it, a few words catching her eye, Avalon , Rattlers , Safety. But, it's the sigil scratched onto the bottom corner that catches her eye. "Fireflies." Lev nods.

"There was something over here too."

She stares at the letter a beat longer before following him to where he's crouched at the shelves. He pulls something out of a box and places it carefully in her hand. It's a patch sewn in with the firefly sign. It's worn and fraying, curling relentlessly at the edges, but it stirs warm memories of the identical patch that her dad used to have pinned to his satchel. She pockets it with a mind to further inspect it later. 

They leave to find that the morning has already turned into afternoon, harsh California heat heavy in the air. Abby pushes her sweaty hair back. Their boat isn't far from here, if the mental map she's been going by is correct. They step carefully through the tall grass, idle conversations sometimes springing up between them. 

It turns out, they do run into another group. 

"Abby," Lev whispers, pointing up ahead to a gaggle of men leaving a building. Abby drops into a crouch behind a car, Lev quick to follow. She counts at least ten of them at a glance, and she meets Lev's startled eyes with determination hard on her face. 

"Stay here." 

She creeps through the yellowing tall grass, it brushes against her skin uncomfortably but she presses on. The street is riddled with old SUVs that have become part of nature, vines and shrubbery growing up their hoods and into the gaps of the tyres. They provide the perfect cover as Abby moves closer, a shiv ready in her hand for the first kill.

A quick glance thrown over her shoulder is enough to affirm Lev's safety. His face is visible in the gaps of the greenery, the head of his arrow glinting in the sunlight. He's lethal with that bow, she knows. 

Someone yells out, "—Unit four ain't answering! Has anyone checked in with 'em?" 

A man turns to answer, but before his mouth opens her arms are locked around his neck, the blade buried in the soft skin near his pulse. Hot liquid spurts out onto her skin, down his shirt, she drops his body harshly into the bushes. He's still choking blood as she ducks out into the cover of a half-wrecked car. 

Her heart is beating up in her head, loud and distracting and fucking inconvenient in a situation like this where hearing is so imperative. She grits her teeth, hand tight on the hilt of her blade. 

The building nearest to her is partly destroyed, the front wall collapsed on itself. Someone's clearly blown it up, and she searches the wreckage for a way inside. A gap between two beams looks good enough, she signals to Lev, over here. 

They crawl through bushes and grass towards the gap, slipping inside and right through the raider's fingers. Abby claps Lev on the shoulder, he leans into her briefly before taking a step away. It's an office building they've found themselves in. Desks and computer monitors lay discarded about the place, haphazard in the way that lets them know there was a struggle here. A dusty machine in the corner is some sort of photocopier, Abby recalls Manny telling her once about it being able to completely replicate one paper. She'd been amazed. 

Something rattles in the distance of the building. Her gun is trained into the darkness ahead of them in a millisecond, but the sounds come from upstairs. The uneven thump of a runners footsteps overhead is easily recognisable to the pair of them. "Demons," Lev hisses, his bow lifting at the ready to fuck shit up. Abby has a better idea though. 

She nods towards a small window that's been smashed through. "Over there."

She helps Lev up, pushing his thin body through the space. He grunts and drops down to the other side, Abby following him with ease. A clear path is set out for them, through an alleyway and over a chain link fence, back out into another street. 

The surrounding area is pretty wrecked. Gun shells and bodies litter the floor, a sign that it wasn't an infected fight that went down here, it was a gunfight. Bullet holes scatter across the walls of the bricked once-stores lining the road, smashed glass reflecting the relentless sun. "There's a lot of people here," Lev says, his voice faraway. 

Abby's quick to reassure him because she's thinking of the same thing he is. Haven, with the Seraphites' corpses spread across the floor in dozens. "Yeah, but check him out," She bumps the toe of her boot against a half decomposed body, "this happened a while back." 

Some of them look military-type, if their uniforms are anything to go by. Cold fear settles itself in her stomach at the chance of their being some larger force lurking somewhere in Santa Barbara. Her footsteps quicken.

They make it to the outskirts of town, battle wreckage following them as they go. Blown-up cars, smashed bottles, a machete lodged into a wooden fence. Abby stares at it for a second before Lev calls for her to hurry it up.

The buildings eventually become more spaced out, and it's like they're walking in some sort of cross between civilization and the wild. The afternoon is filled with birds twittering and leaves rustling in the wind, blue sky stretching out at an expanse overhead. Abby can appreciate this, they both can, after being subjected to so long in the dreary bowels of Seattle. They walk side-by-side in what's now become an almost pleasant stroll straight through the woods. It's a mirage of safety that they both buy into far too easily. 

They can be idiots sometimes.

A twig snaps somewhere to the right and then the stalker comes barrelling out of nowhere, it's jaws snapping inches from her face. Abby struggles with it, pushing against it's body with enough force to send it scampering back off into the woods. She throws an arm out blindly to shove Lev behind her, her only instinct being to protect him. 

They turn slowly in circles, eyes locked on to everything. Each rustle of the thicket sends her senses into overdrive, has her finger twitch on the trigger of her gun. The tang of blood and mangled shit in the air is enough to tell them that they aren't alone. Abby curses. 

Then she hears it. It shrieks from behind her, Lev yells out, in surprise or pain she isn't sure, she spins round and fires three rounds into it's fucked up face. It falls to the ground in a slump, dark blood pooling around it's twisted shape. Her ears ring as she stares into it, visions of Owen and Mel and Manny laying in much the same way shimmering in each shade of red. The way they'd been lifeless figures on the floor, destined for nothing more than what they'd already been. How she'd stood there, heart pounding unlike theirs, how she'd stared down into eyes that would never again stare back. 

It's Lev's harsh breathing that brings her out of her head. Her mind crashes into the present, realisation of the situation flooding her body. She grabs his shoulders, her wild eyes scan over his body in search of a bite. "Did it get you? Are you okay?" Her voice is high and frantic, too loud for their surroundings but she doesn't give a fuck right now, did it get him did it get him did it– 

"Abby." Lev gently pokes her cheek with his finger, and she pauses. "I'm fine." 

She releases a breath and stumbles back slightly, hands dropping from his shoulders. Her cheeks burn in embarrassment and relief. "I'm sorry– I was just..." She trails off and meets his eyes, they're blown wide in surprise at her outburst. He shifts his weight from door to foot and gestures behind him as if to say that should probably go. She nods. 

The beach is closer now, Abby realises that they've actually done quite well for time today, they've almost reached the boat and the sun's still up. She smiles to herself, but it's wiped from her face when she sees how far away Lev is walking from her. She thinks she unsettled him earlier. Maybe she should apologise again. Would that make him more withdrawn? Is he just shaken up from the attack? 

She doesn't have a fucking clue. 

Ten minutes pass before she can't take the silence anymore. Abby steps closer to where Lev is. He's deep in thought about something, she can tell, she tries for a light grin to ease the atmosphere around them. "Hey kid, everything okay over here? You look like you're a million miles away." 

He frowns up at her. "I'm right here." 

Sometimes she forgets how literal he can be. "It's just an expression, it means you look like you're really thinking about something and you're not paying attention to anything else." Lev nods, she practically sees him filing away this new knowledge. 

"That's pretty cold." A small smile closes off his sentence, and he looks so proud to be using an expression that she doesn't have the heart to correct him. Abby nods and ruffles her hand through his hair fondly. 

Lev stays with her as they carry on towards the wooden stairs that lead to the beach. He walks carefully, she notices, he always has. Like sneaking around is something he's used to. In this world, it is, but Abby's almost certain that Lev has spent his whole life sneaking, hiding. It makes her sad. She never wants to be the one to make him feel like he has to hide. 

Lev stops short. Abby turns to ask him what's wrong, but she hesitates at seeing his eyes narrowed towards the left. Abby follows his line of sight and sees nothing but a clearing dotted with a few heat crippled trees. "What's–"

A shriek pierces the air. Abby's head snaps up. Their weapons come up in sync as they both fall into a combat stance, feet readied for fight or flight. She whispers for Lev to stay close. They tiptoe through the dead grass, staying in the cover of trees until they know what they're up against. The clearing is relatively empty though, another wrecked up car abandoned at it's center, sinister looking shadows writhing across red gravel; a result of the trees that line the edges of the area. But it's silent now. 

Abby takes a daring step forward into a more exposed position. She points her gun at empty space. Clicks it to the ready. Nothing. 

Then, there's another cry. But this sounds different, not menacing or attacking, it's-- "It's in pain," Lev says quietly, Abby affirming with a jerk of the head. She glances around for the cause of the pain, expecting to see a Hunter or a Raider, but still, nothing. 

"What the fuck?" 

Lev sees her first. Strung up in a tree, held upside down by a rope twisted around her ankle. Her arms are limp, blood streaked, swinging gently in the breeze. Her eyes are closed, her body practically lifeless, but-- that face. Abby would recognise it anywhere. 

Ellie.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello. fellow yees and haws. i'm back on this abby/ellie shit and i am not sorry. i'm also quite enjoying writing this. hope you enjoy reading it. 🍉

"It's her," Lev breathes out. Fuck. Abby stumbles back with half a mind to turn and flee, to take Lev as far away from here as she can. Ellie must be here to kill her, to kill them. It's not a coincidence, Abby's mind whispers to her. Is it a coincidence?

Ellie's unconscious, looking as though one good deck to the head would knock her dead. Abby’s fist curls at the idea, but her more rational side stops her from letting a punch fly. Something about the scene keeps Abby transfixed on every detail, from the ink winding round Ellie’s arm, the blood soaking through Ellie’s torn shirt, the sunburned freckles stretching across her nose. 

The fear thaws out a few seconds later, dissolving like ice that drenches her in uncertainty. Maybe it’s because she and Lev clearly have the upper hand here, or maybe it’s because she thought Ellie was long gone from their lives and the shock is overshadowing everything and anything else. 

“Fuck,” Abby hisses. What’s she supposed to do? She turns and takes a step away then another, her head turned downwards in muddled thought. She can feel Lev’s eyes on her. Shit… What the fuck is she supposed to do?

Her head is flooded like the streets in Seattle, and it's so loud even though the only sounds are their collective breathing. Her ears are ringing as though somebody just fired a shotgun right next to her head, shit shit shit. Abby's fingers thread themselves through her hair, palms flat against her head. It's something Mel, of all people, taught her way back when she first joined the WLF. Hands on your head, deep breaths, count to four and you'll be fine. _One. Two. Three. Four._

It always works. 

She straightens her back and turns round to face Ellie's slack face again. “Okay,” Her voice sounds relatively normal, “Okay.” She repeats. 

Lev steps towards her unsurely. He doesn't seem scared either, but then again she's still having trouble reading his emotions. Sometimes she mistakes his impassiveness for something that it isn't. “ _Okay_ … What are we going to do?” He asks. 

They should just leave her here. Maybe an infected will stumble across her, she won't turn but she'll die from blood loss. A raider might find her and kill her within seconds. Or she'll just stay hung from the tree and she'll die anyway. They really should just leave her here. Ellie isn't worth the trouble that seems to tail her all day and all night. 

But then Lev puts his hand on her arm and fuck, she knows what he wants and so she already knows what she's going to do. “We can't leave her here.” The look on his face calls back to that night in the theatre, the fear stark on his features as he called her name. He hadn't wanted to kill that girl. And so Abby left her, and left Ellie too. 

Still, Abby cuts in half heartedly, “We can.” Her voice is a desperate attempt for him to agree, because if he doesn't, and he wants to take Ellie, then she knows there's no way she'll leave her here.

He shakes his head with a smile laced with sympathy. Whether that sympathy is for Abby, for Ellie, or just for their current situation, she doesn't ask. Really, it could be for all three. 

“We can't, Abby. You know we can't.” 

Her last attempt is pathetic even before the get-go, her voice a shell of the authority it usually holds. “She deserves to die, Lev.” 

He sighs in a way that makes him seem older than he really is. Sometimes forget that it isn't his age that makes him mature, it's his experiences, the life he's been forced to live. “Back in the Seraphites,” he starts, Abby's shoulders tensing at the mention of the Seraphites, “they said that the rules are the same for everybody. If you think that she deserves death for what she's done, you must accept that you too deserve death, as you did the same as she did.” 

_The rules are the same for everybody._

Fuck. 

* * *

Lev’s the one who cuts Ellie down, and Abby doesn’t say a word. She’s sure that if she opens her mouth all she’ll do is scream, which is a bad idea on all fronts. 

She takes Ellie’s weapons, an empty shotgun and a battered revolver, stowing them in her pack. There’s little chance that she’s going to be waking up anytime soon, but Seattle had taught Abby that carelessness is fatal. And so she takes every precaution, uses the rope from the trap to tie Ellie’s wrists together, tells Lev to walk a little way away from her in case something should happen and he has to get away. 

“She’s still bleeding.” Lev says quietly, but the unsettling silence of the area causes it to startle Abby. She glances down to Ellie’s bloody shirt. It does look pretty bad, she’ll admit. But she doesn’t care. 

“We’ll deal with it on the boat.” Finality washes out her voice and he looks away with a clenched jaw. Abby sometimes wishes he didn’t have such a good heart. It’s going to get him into trouble one day, trouble he doesn’t deserve. She sighs. Her chest loosens enough for her to throw a smile she hopes he catches, “Hey. We can deal with it, okay?” 

He nods, albeit a little stiffly, but it’s enough for now. They have to get a move on anyway. Abby stoops downwards to pull Ellie’s limp form off the ground easily, her mind trying desperately to think of anything other than this fucked-up situation. It’s as though they just go round and round down the same paths that they already know don’t lead to resolutions. They say that all things come full circle eventually, that nothing lasts forever. but how much farther do they have to go until they reach that point? 

* * *

The walk back to the boat is like wading through the shallows of a forgotten river. Awkwardness washes over them like water, sweeping away the peacefulness of the coastline and leaving them stranded in silence. The sky is coloured in golden and pink, something that Abby would’ve appreciated if this were any other time. 

Now though, she focuses on the ground that stretches out in front of her, mind far away in a place she thought she’d never have to go back to. She’s acutely aware of the hard press of Ellie’s ribs against her own, vaguely aware of Lev ahead of her. His back faces her, a silhouette against the brightness of the sky beyond the hill they’re traipsing down. 

At least the boat is where they left it. She sees it from a ways away, half-distant but still somehow close. It’s not home, nowhere really is, but it’s the closest thing she has. Something that almost resembles happiness swells in her chest, the same chest that Ellie’s pressed against. The feeling is gone before she realises. 

The hill descends harshly towards the beach, a steep enough angle that she loses her footing a few times and stumbles in sad attempts to keep from falling. Lev laughs from where he’s already standing in the sand, the sound mostly lost in the crashing waves. How had he gotten down there so fast? 

He’s quietly smug all the way along the beach, his expression only falling away when she half-heartedly teases him about walking so far from the tide line. Maybe he can tell that Abby’s not quite present right now, she’s kind of just drifting in and out of thoughts, but he doesn’t mention it. 

He never mentions anything. 

It's only once they’re stood on the deck of their not-quite-home that the situation really sinks in, at least for Abby. Are they still going to the fireflies? Would they take Ellie with them? Is somebody here with Ellie, someone who could be tracking them right now? Abby glances back towards the direction they’d come from… but something gives her the feeling that Ellie’s alone. 

“Are you going to leave her out here?” Lev can’t refrain from the questions. She doesn’t blame him, because there’s a lot to question, unfortunately. A shrug sends dulled pain along her tense shoulders. 

“I don’t know.” 

“When do you think she’ll wake up?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“What are you going to say to h–“ 

“Damnit, Lev! I said I don’t know, okay?” 

He nods, turning away with questions he still wants to ask spinning around his head. Abby wishes she could be better with him, she wishes she could just talk with him. It's hard to talk when you don't have any answers, and Abby is fucking sick of letting him down. She sighs, the sound halting his receding footsteps. 

“I'm going to tie her wrists to the railing. Leave her out here. Okay?” She folds her arms to maybe convey any sort of authority and put togetherness. He doesn't turn around. Abby taps her foot against the wooden deck for a second, before saying in a lighter tone, “Okay?” 

Lev nods and disappears away into the cabin, leaving Abby and Ellie alone in the disappearing sun. It's warm on her back as she bends down to take Ellie's hands, partially blinding as she tugs them up to the railing and knots a rope there. She kicks all of the various supplies a good distance away from Ellie's unconscious form, bullets tapping against the metal of their tins as they roll against the wood. 

Ellie's head is limp, falling forward so her chin presses against the neck of her dirty shirt. A flash of a silver haired man’s head falling forward streaks through her mind, leaving a distant echo of his voice calling out for Ellie. Abby bites her cheek hard enough to draw blood, and turns away.

She smiles at Lev when she's back in the cabin, and if he sees anything off about it, he doesn't mention it.

* * *

Lev falls asleep halfway through their half-hearted game of uno. He's been drifting away for about a half hour now, insisting time and time again that _I’m not falling asleep Abby!_

She lays him on the bed as gently as she can, pulling the sheet up over his legs the way she knows he prefers it to be. He looks peaceful, innocent in a way that Abby can never remember herself being. She's thankful, at least, that he gets these pockets of time where he doesn't have to do anything but dream like the child he is. 

Somewhere in her mind a voice bites out that Lev is not a child, but… Abby glances down at his closed eyes. For now he is. 

The cabin door is open, light Santa Barbara breeze blowing strands of hair into her eyes. They'd decided to leave in the morning, both of them being too tired to stay up steering tonight. She sits on the only slightly uncomfortable bench, and if she tilts her face she can see Ellie's motionless leg in the dim lamp light. 

Abby would love to fall asleep now and wake up to a day where everything is fine, where they didn't find Ellie and they're on their way to Avalon and the Fireflies. 

But everything isn't fine. 

Sleep avoids her, Abby sits poker straight with her eyes open. Her thoughts flit from topic to topic, her dad, the fireflies, Owen, Lev. She doesn't really dwell on anything too long, it is what it is and regrets and wishes won't change anything. She knows that Lev stopped praying a few weeks ago, they haven't talked about it, but she has a feeling he's starting to see things for what they are. He's starting to see that that fucking cult was nothing more than just that; a fucking cult. 

Her mind crosses back to Owen and the fact that Ellie is just a few feet away from her, and that makes her fists curl and the edge of her vision-line turn red. It's Seattle all over again, she's going to throw up, fuck, she's going to die— fuck. Something like a gunshot echoes through her, or maybe her heart is just beating that loud. Her nails are digging into her palms hard enough to draw beads of blood that feel warm on her skin. Fuck. 

Abby settles down soon enough, breathing even, but the aftershocks hit hard anyway. The onslaught of thoughts, memories, things she can't let go of mentally, and so she writes. She writes, on a sheet of paper she'll throw to the ocean before Lev sees it. 

_Hey Owen._

_It sucks that you were right. About a lot of things. Mostly, you were fucking right about Jackson. We never should've gone. We should've stayed in that fucking aquarium–_

Her hand slips and the pen slashes a harsh line across the page, stark black against the yellowed paper. She grips it tighter.

_It doesn't matter anyway. We went. Shit happened. Shit’s still happening. I thought it was over but it isn't. It probably never will be. Maybe I should just kill her. Lev wouldn't want that. Maybe I should just throw her over the side of the boat and sail away into the fucking sunset. Lev wouldn't want that._

_Are you having fun, wherever the hell you ended up? I sometimes think you're still at the aquarium. Just hanging around, with your fucking toy crossbow and your fairy lights._

_We found the fireflies today. Found her too– but I'm not processing that yet. I don't know how to. But yeah, fireflies. In Avalon. Hopefully they've never heard of the shit that goes on in Seattle. They probably haven't, but word travels fucking fast._

_Don't know why I'm acting like you're ever going to read this._

_Are you still looking for the light? If you are, you shouldn't. I realised a long time ago that it's all just a fucking lie._

* * *

She spends the rest of the night staring out onto the deck, the paper torn and scrunched in her first, away in memories that fade to nothing in time for the first rays of morning sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shocking results from local survey say leaving comments improve dress sense up to 25 percent.
> 
> (that statistic is completely made up and a poorly disguised plea for validation)
> 
> follow my tumblr for some good shit content @elliefvckingwilliams


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been a while, i know. sorry about that. this chapter was difficult for me, it was hard trying to figure out abby and ellie's dynamic because they literally don't have a proper conversation in the game for me to reference. 
> 
> anyway, i hope you enjoy it and that the wait was worth it ! 🍉

Ellie wakes up in the early afternoon.

Abby had been on edge all day, her mind teetering on cliffs that lead to memories she didn't want to ever think about again. Lev had tried to distract her a few times, with stories and jokes that didn't really make sense, his voice soft and caring as he spoke. Abby had told him she was fine. That he didn't need to worry.

She's cleaning her shotgun for something to do when she hears it. The pained groan, the shuffle and grunt of _her_ trying to break free of the ropes around her hands. It was inevitable, Abby obviously knew it was going to happen at some point, yet still she freezes. Something gets her to her feet though, something pulls her towards the door, out to the deck, towards her.

It's too bright, the waves against the boat are static noise on a constant loop, Lev's footsteps behind her the only sound breaking through it. Abby looks at him pointedly. "Stay back." He nods, shifting the weight of his bow in his hands. Something like pride blossoms in her chest briefly, for the way he holds his head high. Unafraid. Abby wishes she could be like that, but she isn't so all she can do is cross her arms and clear her throat.

Ellie's head snaps up, and their eyes meet. The image of a battered man calling out for his daughter claws through her mind, but Abby shoves it away and instead stares into the hateful expanse of Ellie's eyes. She's staring into the face that once looked down into Owen's as it's owner murdered him. Nora's. Leah's.

Shit.

She expects an outburst. Resistance. Shouting and swearing and arguing. But Ellie just stares, like a deer that sees it's hunter at the last second, eyes wide in realisation of what's about to happen. She wouldn't be able to do any resisting anyway, her hands are tied above her head and it looks like that's the only thing keeping her up. She looks tired, resigned, defeated. It would be easy to kill her right now.

Abby wishes things could be that simple. She wishes she'd never brought Ellie here in the first place. They should be far away, safe, Lev should be safe.

"You have ten seconds to tell me why I shouldn't kill you right now." It could be the fury thrumming beneath the words that makes Ellie look away. Abby notes her eyes briefly flicker in the direction of Lev. _Don't look at him._

Ten seconds pass, then twenty, thirty, and then it's been at least two minutes and Ellie hasn't so much as made eye contact again. She's winced a few times, Abby knows Lev has noticed it, knows he's itching to help her. Ellie doesn't fucking deserve his help.

Nobody says a word. Nobody knows what to say, least of all Abby. Ellie tried to kill her. She's here to try again, despite the fact that Abby let her go. Ellie killed her friends. All of them. And now she hasn't even got a fucking thing to say about it.

_Fuck it._ "Time's up." Abby snaps, voice as the arrow nocked in Lev's bow. She steps forward, the sun burning her back. She rears her fist back -- Ellie still doesn't move -- she's going to kill her, take revenge that's a long time coming. Her eyes narrow into thin lines, the fist is going down, down, _down_ , but, Lev stops her. He calls her name, and he's ignored her and moved forward, hand on her arm like he's the one who should be comforting her.

"--- Abby. You can't." His eyes glint in the light, but still she sees their sincerity. _Get back. You don't know what she's capable of._

Abby shakes his hand off, heart beating like it's going to burst out of her rib cage. "Lev--"

He cuts her off, "She's hurt, Abby. Look," Abby doesn't, "She's going to die if we don't help her." The way he looks at Ellie with concern makes Abby's stomach turn, the wrongness of helping someone who took everything from her makes her sick. She shakes her head. No.

"So let her." Abby wantshim to drop it. She wishes for him to listen to her, just this once, to not argue like he did back in the clearing. Because if he does then Abby doesn't know how she'll live with herself. How can she let Ellie live, knowing what that fucker did to the only family she had? She can't, but Lev can make her and he knows it. _Don't_. She shakes her head again. _Please don't_.

Lev looks down at the pathetic form of Ellie slumped against the railing, the same concern flaring up in his eyes. If Abby had it her way, they would throw Ellie overboard now and be done with it. Lev would never have to worry about her like he is now, Abby would never have to consider the possibility of seeing her again. They would find the fireflies in Avalon, join up and build a new life for themselves. A better life than they'd had before.

But Abby doesn't have it her way. She has it Lev's way.

And she's not a pushover by any means, but for Lev, she would move a fucking mountain to keep him happy. To keep him from feeling any more pain. She's already caused him enough of that, Yara, his mom -- if she had just figured out that he had left _sooner_ \-- just... everything. Abby can't do anything about that now. But she can make sure he never feels anything close to what he felt then ever again.

So all she can do is nod, ignore the lump in her throat, step away and watch as he crouches besides Ellie. At least he doesn't speak to her. She doesn't think he knows what to say anyway.

* * *

Abby sits in the shade of the doorway and watches Lev patch up the girl who destroyed everything she ever had.

* * *

Lev retreats back into the cabin afterwards, one glare from Abby was enough to let him know she wasn't budging on that. As soon as he's gone she wishes he stayed, because now there's nothing to focus on but Ellie.

A little bit of colour has returned to her face, she sits up with marginally returned strength. Lev's hands work magic, she guesses. He's good at that healer stuff.

"Alright," Abby speaks mostly to herself, sets herself down on the floor opposite Ellie. "Now for the questions." She waits for any sort of reaction to her words, but Ellie either didn't hear her or doesn't give a shit.

By now, the afternoon has crossed into early evening, warm tones and light breeze that Abby wishes she could enjoy. They're about a mile away from where they'd been yesterday, still in Santa Barbara. She hadn't been able to steer the boat away. She isn't sure why. But she's sure that they should really leave soon, and by _they_ she means her and Lev.

"How did you find us?"

No answer.

Abby folds her arms. "How did you find us?" Her voice is calmer than she'd have expected it to be, considering everything. Maybe those interrogations Isaac used to force her into will actually come in handy. _Isaac. WLF. Leah. Nora. Owen._

She draws in a noticeably shaky breath. Maybe Ellie notices, because she glances up briefly. It's a split second of green ice slicing through the air before whatever emotions had been briefly stirred die out and Ellie looks back to the floor.

This is getting her nowhere.

"Tell me how you found us, _or_ ," Her sentence finishes with the click of her gun loading. It's a threat in every sense, and Ellie knows it. Abby watches her, the twisting of her body as she finally sits up, the downward turning of her mouth as it stretches into a pained scowl.

"I'm really... thirsty." Ellie grates, looking up but not at Abby.

Abby scoffs, but subconsciously the hand holding her pistol lowers. A stupid move on her part.

It’s a half second of movement, a whip of action, but a leg sweeps out and Abby stumbles, “ _Shit_ ,” She grabs for the railing, looks down to see her gun between Ellie’s feet as she tries to hook it up into her hands.

Abby stares for a second. Surprise turned amusement bubbles inside her. There’s no way Ellie’s getting anywhere with whatever she tried, and Ellie seems to realise as she brings her foot down hard on the deck.

“Abby? Is everything okay?” Lev calls from inside. Abby affirms and turns back to Ellie.

She moves forward almost leisurely, calmly, reaches down to pick the pistol up and brushes it off on her trousers. “ _Don’t_ ,” Her hand cracks across Ellie’s face in a slap, “ _do that again_. Or this,” She jams the pistol’s mouth up against Ellie’s temple, “is going to get a _lot_ worse for you. Got it?”

Ellie nods it and it almost feels as good as it did when Abby slapped her. 

Satisfied, she resumes her position, sitting back on her heels and tilting her head in questioning. She’s sure that Ellie’s starting to get with the programme now. “ _How did you find us?_ ”

Sure enough, Ellie’s head moves slightly in consideration for her answer. Abby narrows her eyes. “The truth.”

A sharp intake of breath. A muttered curse. “I was... travellin’ down this way anyway. Heard about you. A–“ Ellie coughs, “A fucking giant and a kid with scars on his face. Knew it was you.”

It’s plausible. (She glosses over the fucking giant part) . But who would be talking about her and Lev? “Who did you hear it from?”

Ellie shrugs as best she can. “Coupl’a people. Big guy, a trader, I think. Some other fucker. Just people.”

Abby nods. “Are youon your own?”

The question gets a reaction, finally. Ellie tenses up, her whole body locking and her jaw clenching. The answer comes a few seconds or an hour later. “–Yeah.”

There’s nothing much said after that. She retreats back inside, mind riddled with plans and thoughts and memories. Lev goes out to give Ellie water, a granola bar. He’d ignored Abby when she told him not to. _Kids_.

Abby barely remembers being a kid. Her life is separated into two stages, _with dad_ and _without dad_. As far as she’s concerned her childhood died that night in the firefly hospital. Did Ellie’s childhood die the same night? Was Abby the murderer of it, back in the chalet in Jackson?

A scream echoes through her ears, familiar enough for her to know it isn’t real. Just a figment of nightmarish memories. It could be real though, because the owner of the scream is tied up right outside the room Abby is in.

Abby drops her head into her hands. _Fuck_.

* * *

“We could take her to the fireflies with us.”

Abby’s eyes snap open, heart jumping in surprise. She’d been about to fall asleep, and now it’s going to take her another half hour to get to that point. She rubs a hand over her cheek.

“Ha ha. Funny joke, Lev. _Real_ funny.” She grumbles, turning onto her side carefully so she doesn’t slip off the bench.

There’s the sound of shuffling sheets as Lev sits up. Abby groans internally. “I’m not joking. I’m being serious, Abby.”

“So am I.”

Lev carries on as if she hadn’t said anything. “We’re going there anyway. And you said that she was stolen from the fireflies. We can give her to them and let them decide what to do with her. Then you don’t have to do it.”

Abby bites her cheek to keep from screaming into her pillow. She’s not arguing with him, not now, not about this. “ _No_ , Lev. Can we drop it?”

“What are you going to do instead?”

That catches her off guard. “What?”

“You don’t have another plan. I have a plan. It makes sense to follow it.”

“It might make sense for you, Lev, but not for me. I want to be as far from her as possible. Not joining the same fucking group as her! So, no. We’ll leave her on the beach in the morning, and she’ll never come near us again. That’s the plan.” Abby laces the statement with finality. She thinks he accepts it because they lapse into silence again, and her eyes slip shut and her body feels heavy and–

“–I think we should help her.”

Abby startles and swears, unsure if she heard him right. He repeats himself when she doesn't answer. She scoffs, is he serious? "Are you serious? _After everything_?"

The bed creaks as presumably he settles back into it, and either Abby is half asleep or he is because his voice is distant when he replies. "I think she needs us."

No. Abby isn't doing it.

No fucking way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ellie is running on empty she needs FUEL. 
> 
> comments really do help motivate me and also make me veryyy happy so if you feel like it please leave one. 🙃
> 
> (my tumblr is @elliefvckingwilliams so check that out if you can be bothered)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow... it’s been a while. i’ve been very absent from here and from tumblr, and i honestly don’t have a reason. just that there’s been kind of a lot going on. but here’s another chapter ! enjoy it, and i hope that the extensively long wait was at least kind of worth it 😸

She does it for Lev and for Lev only. 

It’s not like she did it for herself, the last thing Abby wants is to be stuck on a boat with Ellie, and it’s certainly not like she did it for Ellie. 

And anyway, they won’t be together for long. Just until they reach the fireflies. A few days, tops. She won’t lie, the prospect of finding them, being with them, genuinely puts her at a loss for words. Maybe it’s the fact that she might be part of something again, she might get to have a purpose again. 

She knows Lev is a purpose, caring for him is probably the only thing keeping her from falling off the edge, but she doesn’t want to just exist— she wants to  _ do _ something. She wants to do anything other than this. 

“Would you  _ quit _ it?” 

Ellie clenches her jaw and takes a breath like she’s going to say something back, but the words never come and Ellie’s boot stops tapping on the wooden deck. Abby glares in her direction for a few seconds; her eyes falling back to the water afterwards. 

Lev is inside, napping maybe, and that means that Abby is on Ellie duty. Abby thinks that Lev quite likes it when it’s his turn to keep watch, she hears him talking to Ellie, asking questions and making cautious conversation. She never hears if Ellie says anything back, the crashing and lapping of the waves overshadowing whatever words she speaks. 

Minutes pass and then there’s the sound of tapping again, repetitive and irritating. Abby’s eyes harden, a flicker of defiance crosses over Ellie’s face. The sun seems to dip lower in the sky, allowing shadows to dance across the floor like silhouettes of figures battling against each other. 

“I said fucking  _ stop _ it.” Abby’s voice slices through the tension-thick air, a shot fired from a gun that’s been in more than one fight. Ellie ignores it and it’s like pouring gasoline onto the burning hatred inside of Abby. Then she’s seeing red and her jacket is rustling as she’s about to stand; the scene only pauses because Lev chooses that exact second to duck out from the doorway.

He stares for a moment, carefully taking in Abby’s anger flushed cheeks and Ellie’s riled scowl. “I’m… hungry.” He says to Abby, eyes lingering in the direction of Ellie. Abby deflates immediately, and she claps a hand on his shoulder, grateful for his presence in every way possible. 

“Kid, you’ve gotta learn how to work the gas.” She moves towards the cabin and doesn’t look back. Lev sighs and nods his head in acceptance. He can never seem to get the gas fire going, no matter how many times Abby talks him through it. He watches in awe as she turns the switch and gas burns up almost immediately. 

He handles it from there, his movements only slightly unsure as he starts to heat up a kind of rabbit stew concoction in a chipped pan they found in an abandoned walmart. Abby sits on the bench, half smiling as they make idle conversation to fill the empty space. 

“How long do you think it’ll take for us to get to Avalon?” Lev speaks over his shoulder, his gaze meeting her’s briefly. He’s wearing an LA Lakers tee that’s way too big for him, but one look at the purple logo and he was sold. 

Abby shrugs. “A couple of hours probably. But then we’ve gotta find the fireflies, and I doubt they’ll be waiting with a welcome party.”

He looks back at her. “Welcome party?” 

Right. Sometimes she forgets about his lack of general knowledge, probably because his extensive knowledge of other things makes up for it. “A big gathering of people to like… welcome you? Like a welcome home party.” 

“Okay.” The afternoon light pools on his head like a halo when he bows it in a nod, turning her half smile into a full one that he’s quick to mirror. 

“But yeah. They’re probably hidden pretty well. We’ll find them though, Avalon isn’t too big.” 

“Will there be demons there?” 

If there are, they could always use Ellie as a shield. That would be a last resort though, of course. Abby exhales in a sigh and sinks further into the worn bench, further crinkling the magazine that she’s sitting on. “I hope not.” 

She thinks that both she and Lev have had enough infected for a thousand lifetimes, but she knows that there’s no way the cruel world will ever take that into account. She supposes that Ellie’s probably had enough of them too— but who hasn’t? Everybody’s had enough of them. 

Lev turns around, grinning ear-to-ear, and she raises an eyebrow at his seemingly unprompted happiness. “It’s not burnt!” He gestures for her to come and look, she gets up with a groan and a cracking of joints to peer into the depths of the pan. Her hand ruffles through his hair approvingly when she sees that, unlike the last ten times he heated something up, the food is not burnt. 

“Well done, kid.” 

* * *

They reach Avalon at dusk. The moon is just waking up, a white crater in the sky, stars blinking back at her from a million miles away. It’s sort of peaceful. Serene would be a better word for it, she guesses. 

Out of the corner of her eye Abby sees Ellie jolt when the boat knocks the wooden dock. She hadn’t realised that she’d been asleep. Lev already has his bow ready, his head turned towards the shadow of the Island. It’s a dark mass of mountainous hills and beach houses, a ghost of what used to be a dreamy vacation spot. 

Reluctantly, Abby kneels to untie Ellie’s wrists for the first time, almost flinching at the cold skin that brushes her fingers. “Don’t try anything.” She warns, and Ellie rubs at her wrists without saying anything, just looking back to see the island. There’s a jacket laying on the bench next to them, she grabs it and drops it into Ellie’s lap. Lev already gave Ellie clean clothes, army-esque pants and a crewneck, but— he would have given her the jacket if Abby hadn’t. 

Ellie glances up at Abby, confused for a split second, and this time it’s Abby who turns away in a stubborn fashion. 

There’s a cautious air about the three of them as Abby steps off the boat first. Her pack bounces between her shoulder blades when the worn structure of the pier trembles slightly. “It’s safe.” The words are a barely concealed lie, because truthfully Abby has no idea how safe this place is. She doesn’t know if the fireflies are here. She doesn’t know if she’s walking right into a trap, and taking Lev there with her. 

He follows her anyway and Ellie moves after him. She’s slung her own backpack on, which doesn’t matter because Abby already took the weapons out of it. 

It’s light enough that they don’t need flashlights yet, so she takes a pistol in her palm, her body tense. “I don’t know what we’re looking for, so keep an eye out. And you,” Abby’s eyes burn a hole in Ellie’s, “don’t try  _ anything _ .” 

“You already said that.” Ellie snaps back unexpectedly. Abby scowls in hatred and points her gun towards Ellie’s midriff.

“And I’m saying it again.” 

Lev sighs, and they move on. 

* * *

It’s eerily silent as they move through a beachside street. The sea is too far off to be able to hear the water crash, and they’re too careful to let their footsteps be heard. Abby can barely even hear the whisper of her own breathing. 

The area is like any other, abandoned buildings and smashed windows and overgrown weeds twisting into doorways. The cracked concrete of the road is bathed in dying sunlight that turns it red, and it feels faintly warm on the back of Abby’s neck. Some buildings still have legible signs, like  _ Roger’s Seafood  _ or  _ Beachy Bits (buckets and spades sold here!).  _

Lev is curious, she can tell. He walks a bit ahead, his head turning in a different direction with each passing second. This is the third new place he’s been to, so she supposes it is a little exciting for him, even with the shadow of danger that seems to loom over them. 

Ellie walks next to Abby, staring straight ahead, but Abby gets the feeling that she isn’t really looking at anything. 

It is a little underwhelming, Abby thinks. Disappointing, maybe. She wasn’t expecting a welcome party, but they’ve been creeping around for almost an hour now and they haven’t seen anything promising. She’d expected to see at least a firefly logo spray painted onto a wall by now. 

_ Optimism, Abby. It’ll come in handy someday.  _ Her dad’s voice sounds in her head, his smiling face at the forefront of her mind,  _ Optimism will take you far in life.  _ Abby scoffs and Ellie briefly looks sideways, maybe thinking that Abby was scoffing at her. For once she isn’t, instead she scoffs at her stupidly naive dad, and the stupid things he used to say and the stupid way he isn’t here to say them anymore. 

Abby takes a step away from Ellie, dragging a hand through her hair to try to calm herself down. The hollowness in her chest echoes with nothing to accentuate its emptiness, and suddenly Abby just feels  _ tired.  _

She’s always tired, really, but this is different. It’s more like she’s drained of the will to carry on, probably a product of the disappointment that floods her. Lev, always her saving grace, is slowing down too, clearly not wanting to be too far ahead as the nighttime starts to envelope them. 

“Hey,” She calls out to him quietly, and he stops to move closer to her and Ellie. “I don’t think it's safe to wander in the dark. I say we choose one of these stores to shelter in until morning.” 

He agrees easily, “Which one?” 

Abby hums unsurely, opening her mouth to offer a suggestion, but is stopped by Ellie’s voice. “That one.” She’s pointing to a smaller building across the street. It looks intact, but Abby sees immediately what drew Ellie towards it. There’s a small balcony at the side of it that’s a few feet away from the next building’s balcony, a clearly easy escape route should they need one. 

It’s an okay choice. Decent enough. Abby nods, “Alright,” she starts to walk towards it, but as an afterthought she turns back, “If we get mauled by infected in the middle of the night, I’m blaming you.” 

* * *

The building is empty of pretty much everything, but none of them had expected much anyway. They claim the back room, where a small couch sits in the corner and there’s a scratched beechwood floor. Abby sets her flashlight on the floor to provide some kind of light, even if it’s the kind of light that washes the life out of the room. 

Lev falls asleep straight away. Abby stares at his curled up form, wishing that she could just slip out of consciousness as easily as he can. But she can’t, so she sits with her back against torn wallpaper, completely ignoring Ellie across from her. 

She’d tied one of Ellie’s wrists to a pipe, much to Ellie’s annoyance.  _ “I’m not going to fucking go anywhere, am I?”  _ Abby had shrugged and carried on tying the rope. Taking chances never works out well, and so Abby tries not to take them. Not anymore. 

Abby falls into a kind of haze, listening to Lev’s even breathing and the breeze rustling leaves outside, occasionally shivering for the chill that seeps through the beach store’s thin walls. Eventually though, she’s drawn back to reality by the sound of droplets of water pattering onto the floor. 

She looks around for the source of it, expecting to see the light reflecting off of some kind of leak, but there’s no water. She frowns, putting it up to her exhaustion, and she settles back down. But— there it is again. 

Abby sits up properly this time, annoyance blossoming in her chest. She squints round at the surroundings and then she takes one look at the tiredly defiant face of Ellie and she realises. 

It’s the tapping of Ellie’s fucking foot. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love ellie so much. 
> 
> leave a comment if you feel like it, they are genuinely my favourite part about writing this :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fought the rat king today. Still on a high from the adrenaline and terror. 
> 
> It was so difficult to write this, writers block is a cruel demon. There were a hundred different ways that this chapter could’ve gone and I’m still not entirely sold on the one I chose, but I hope you enjoy it :)

She’s woken by a harsh kick to her leg. 

Abby jolts and straightens immediately, reaching for the gun she left by her side, but one look up shows that nobody’s there. Frowning, she glances round, eyes falling onto Ellie’s glaring face. 

“What?” Abby hisses. Ellie nods towards the door. 

“Someone’s out there.” 

Nerves prickle at the back of Abby’s neck, and she has the good sense to drop her voice to a whisper. “How do you know?”

Ellie widens her eyes, disbelief at the fact that Abby still hadn’t moved an inch. “I fucking heard them. Grab the kid and untie me. We’ve gotta go!” Her whisper-shout stirs Lev, and that’s enough for Abby to lift herself up. She keeps her movements quiet on the creaky floor. 

“Kid,” Abby says, his eyes peek out at her, “Let’s go. Quietly.” 

A thump sounds from the other side of the door. Lev’s body stiffens as Abby’s pulse quickens. She’s debating just leaving Ellie and grabbing Lev and  _ leaving,  _ but it’s as though he reads her mind. He moves cat-like towards Ellie, untying the rope from around her wrists. Ellie doesn’t smile, but for a second she looks slightly less pissed. 

She can’t fucking get him out of bed on any other day, but now he’s happy to wake up as soon as she says. _Fucking kids._

The small window on the West wall will fit Lev and Ellie’s frames easily, but Abby already knows she’s going to have to shove herself through if she wants to get through. 

A shout sounds out, far off but so close, and Abby’s already pushing Lev towards the window. “Go. _Run_!” He scrambles, his body disappearing out of the window a second before the door flies open. 

Abby and Ellie spin round, combat-ready in time for the woman that comes barrelling through. She moves in a blur of black clothes and brown hair, too fast for Abby to fire her gun before the woman shoves Ellie hard in the chest, sending her crashing to the floor. 

Abby’s veins pump with adrenaline, giving her that battle-high that she’s come to crave after being so violence orientated for so many years. She curls her fist, drops her shoulder, doesn’t spare a glance towards Ellie. 

It’s second nature for her to dodge the punch that’s directed her way, and it’s easy for her to grab the woman’s hand and pin it behind her back. She nudges the barrel of her gun against her neck. “Tell me what the fuck you want before I pull this fucking trigger.” 

Abby’s fast, but not fast enough, because then a switchblade is dragged viciously across her thigh and she cries out. Her grip loosens on the woman and she falls to her knees. Tears burn her vision. 

The woman straightens, readying herself to say something, but then Ellie’s there, throwing herself at the woman with an angered yell. Abby squints and hisses a curse she’s thankful Lev isn’t here to hear. Pain throbs from her leg, but there isn’t time for that now. 

She gets to her feet, exhaling when she sees Ellie with a knife to the woman’s throat, the both of them pressed up by the window. Abby scowls, lifts her shotgun from where it’d dropped and casually wafts it towards the pair. 

“Now I really want to pull this trigger.” 

The woman starts to struggle in Ellie’s hold but realises it’s no use soon after. Instead she twists her face into contempt. “This is our territory. I don’t know why you raiders seem to always be-“ she grunts as Ellie tightens her arm, “—forgetting that. If I don’t kill you, someone else will.” 

It’s then that Abby notices the patch sewn into the woman’s collar. 

She steps back, stumbles would be a more accurate description, the gun slipping from her grasp. It clatters to the floor, useless. Abby’s head spins, faster, then faster, then faster. 

Somewhere her mind registers the woman taking Ellie’s distraction as a cue to leave: to escape out of the same window Lev went through. Somebody calls for her, but her back hits the floor and so does her head, and then her world is plunged into darkness. 

* * *

_“A patch? Really?”_

_Abby eyes the small fabric-y thing in her dad’s calloused hand. He’s smiling, and she can tell he’s not faking it, so she hesitantly reaches out for it. She supposes it looks like a firefly, in a strange sort of way. Whoever had sewn it clearly was not artistically gifted._

_Jerry Anderson ruffles her hair. “I picked it up from the patrol meeting. Now you’re a true firefly, kid.”_

_“I don’t know, dad.”_

_He frowns, dropping his body onto the bed beside her. Abby’s bedroom was near empty save for the battered furniture, but Jerry had said that he’d have a look for some stuff to make it more homely. “Don’t know about what?”_

_Abby shrugs. They hardly ever have conversations like these, so it feels as though every response is a sharp edge she wishes could be smoother. “This place,” She says eventually, glancing out of the window at the next house in the camp. Jerry’s arm comes up around her shoulders, and she melts into her dad’s hold._

_“I know…” He starts, even though Abby thinks he doesn’t really know, “... that this place isn’t what you expected. But it’s the real deal, Abby. We have a house, I have a job, there’s food, supplies…”_

_“Everyone here is obsessed with the cure. It’s exhausting, and depressing. I hate it.”_

_Jerry sighs, pats the side of her head affectionately. He’s smiling again, albeit slightly more sadly. “Hope isn’t a bad thing Abby. It’s a light, and these people follow it.”_

_“Do you follow it?”_

_He’s caught off guard. His eyebrows twitch, and his face changes in a way she can’t quite describe. Closed off… maybe? Reserved? She isn’t sure but then there isn’t any way for her to find out because he turns away, standing from the bed._

_“I think it’s bedtime, Abby. Owen said training starts early tomorrow.”_

_He leaves and then she’s alone, clutching the disfigured firefly badge and staring at the blank wall._

* * *

She comes to and flinches at the sun in her face. 

Her body is still as she slowly regains control of her mind and senses, slowly starting to pull herself together. 

She’s in the room they’d slept in last night, but she’s alone, her pack is gone, and so are Lev and Ellie. Shit. When she sits up, her head spins, but she pushes through, too panicked to give a shit.

_The woman_. Abby remembers her suddenly and vividly, swirling hair and slashing switchblade and that fucking patch. The Fireflies are here. They’re here. She’s found them. She wants to lie back down, rest after so long of being on edge and worrying, but she can’t. 

She doesn’t go through the window, instead she makes her way back through to the main door, pushing aside blockades and slipping out. 

Lev is gone. Ellie is gone too. The Fireflies are here. They think that they’re raiders. What should have been a victory to celebrate is a victory going up in flames before Abby’s tired eyes, but she won’t let it fucking happen. Not after all she’s been through. 

Her leg aches but she doesn’t look, and her vision blurs at inconsistent intervals, her stomach growls for any sort of food or water. She’s hyper aware of the empty holster at her hip, hyper aware of how defenceless she is; stumbling down a street to fuck knows where. 

The sky is overcast ahead of her, moody and sad and depressed. She feels it looking down on her, disappointed maybe, at how easily she lost Lev, how irresponsible she is. 

Her boots crunch in the sandy dirt as she ambles along, weeds twisting wickedly around her ankles, each one of them trying to drag her down. She wishes for Owen’s steady arm to guide her, his easy laugh to cheer her, his presence beside her. 

She wishes that the image of him lying dead in the aquarium would stop haunting her. 

* * *

Footsteps echo behind her, and Abby’s eyes narrow, she turns, ready to fist fight her way out of the situation, but then her eyes slip closed in pure, unfiltered relief at the sight of Lev walking towards her. 

He’s not injured, and he’s grinning, and she’s pressing him into a hug as soon as he’s in range, thanking whatever power had allowed him safety a million times over. She pulls back, and the scars on his face skew when he takes in her own appearance. 

“Abby—“ 

“I’m fine,” she interjects, “Are you—“ 

“I’m okay. We escaped that woman, and then we couldn’t find you so I started to worry, but Ellie said—“ 

“ _Ellie?_ ” Abby realises that Ellie is standing a few feet away, her weight shifting awkwardly as she watches Abby and Lev. There’s a far off look on her face, like she’s remembering something from long ago. Abby’s chest clenches. 

She isn’t sure what to say so she goes for the bitchy comment, which, by the way, she’s perfectly entitled to say. “You stole my supplies.” 

Ellie rolls her eyes in a way that shows she wasn’t expecting anything else from Abby. In a mockingly deliberate movement, she slides the pack from her shoulders and drops it into the dirt. “Well what else was I supposed to do after you decide to take a nap mid-fight?”

“I fucking passed out!” 

“And who’s fault is that?”

Abby opens her mouth to fire something back, but she thinks better of it. Lev’s alive. The Fireflies are here.  _ Focus on that.  _

She turns to Lev to avoid the smug victory most likely painted all over Ellie’s face, “Let’s get off the streets, quickly,”

* * *

“They think we’re raiders.” Lev starts, once they’re tucked away in the back room of an old diner. 

They sit on a torn couch type thing that feels like heaven for Abby’s aching body. The door is blocked by a shelf, and the only escape route can be locked from the inside, so she feels safe enough to take a resting breath. 

“That is a problem.” Abby admits. 

“They’re trying to find us and kill us, and this island is even smaller than Hav— the island in Seattle.” Everybody winces. 

Ellie clears her throat, “So basically, we’re fucked.” 

Abby wouldn’t put it like that, but it isn’t far from the truth. How can they approach anybody on this island without being shot and killed? The woman from earlier has definitely spread word of them by now, so there will definitely be patrols out. Abby rubs her temples and sighs exhaustedly. Why can they never catch a fucking break?

“Not exactly,” She shifts in the seat, “Maybe they’ll take us to their camp, instead of killing us on sight. That woman could easily have killed me, but I bet she was going to come back after she got you, and then she would’ve taken us to her camp.” 

Ellie frowns, the light hitting her face well enough for Abby to see her bruised cheekbone. “How do you know she was even with the fireflies?” 

Her head explodes in a whirlwind of her dad and Owen and the patch that is buried at the bottom of her backpack, but she keeps it contained. “She had a firefly patch.” 

“Right, but she could’ve stolen it—“

“That’s stupid, you just don’t want to find the Fireflies—“ 

“You’re fucking right I don’t want to find the Fireflies!” It’s the loudest Ellie’s spoken since they found her in California. Lev is stunned, Abby is shocked, and Ellie is thrumming with anger as she flies to her feet, shoving the blockade away from the door and disappearing into the front of the diner. Lev makes to go after her, but Abby grabs his sleeve. 

“Leave her. She’s not going anywhere.” 

And though, technically, Ellie could disappear and never return, Abby somehow knows she won’t. Because— where will she go? She won’t want to run aimless among towns, fighting for survival that means nothing, and the only other option is this. Abby and Lev. She won’t go anywhere. 

Lev sinks back into his chair. “She might.” 

“She might,” Abby agrees, clapping his shoulder, “but she won’t.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thinking of doing an Ellie chapter next... I really want to write in her point of view. 
> 
> Comment if you feel like it but know I would really appreciate it, and I’m sorry to anyone who follows me on tumblr because my account is basically dead. 
> 
> Hope this made your Monday (or whatever day you read it) better 🙃

**Author's Note:**

> i would die for lev. 
> 
> nothing makes me happier than comments so if you want to please leave one but also you don't have to but please do.
> 
> (if i don't update, yell at me on tumblr @elliefvckingwilliams, or just go and follow me and let's be friends)


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